Missing or Dead?
by Darcie rae
Summary: Shikamaru has been assigned a mission with Naruto and Ino as squad leader. What they thought would be a simple mission, goes horribly wrong when more shinobi go missing, and even worse, killed.
1. Chapter 1 Mission Assigned!

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or any of the awesome Characters!.... "I love you gai sensei!"**

**Sorry that action does not partake in this chapter, but he promised to show up in chapter two!**

'What a drag...' Shikamaru Nara thought to himself, grumbling over the mission just recently assigned to him. 'Tsunade and her ways of torture... giving me a B ranked mission with possibly the two most annoying people in all of konoha. The nerve.' He complained inwardly again.

_"A small village near the border of konoha have asked for our isistance in guarding the main gates. There has been suspicious people in the area, and we are getting complaints of them harassing inoccent bystanders. I want you, Naruto, and Ino to make sure everything is secure, and then report back imediatly. If what they say is true, bring the brats back here. Shikamaru, you'll be squad leader for this mission." Lady tsunade finished, her harsh demeaner challenging them to say something back, as she glowered at the number-one-knuckle-headed-ninja, who at the time looked ready to explode._

_"Granny Tsunade!" He complained._

_"No complaints Naruto! You leave at nine tomorrow morning, understood?"_

_"But this mission is so-"_

_"Shut up Naruto!" Ino whispered harshly, whacking the fellow blonde upside the head, giggling nervously, still not over her fear of Tsunade. The Nara just sighed softly, hoping to get the simple, meaningless mission over and done with fast._

_"Dismissed!" We all turned to leave but her words stopped me. "Except you, Shikamaru." He sighed and hung his head down in irritation before composing himself and turning to face her. Once the door clicked closed, she spoke._

_"If anything goes wrong, don't let Naruto do anything stupid. I didn't tell them the whole mission, or Naruto would have kept me here all night complaining. This is a B ranked mission. There haven't just been complaints of mysterious people, but also of ghost. They claim a ghost is reigning terror on there village and that every night, at the gates, a guard is killed by the ghost. They believe the ghost to be the villages leader from over a century ago, named Hiroshi Ryu. They say because he died at a young age fighting for the village, he's taking the lives of the young shinobi as revenge because the village did not protect him. I refuse to believe this hog-wash and want you and your team to investigate."_

_"How Troublesome .Do you think maybe the Shinobi are just pulling a cruel prank? I don't believe it's a ghost either, maybe a rival is kidnapping them. Have they found any bodies?" He asked, his eye brows arched together deepening the barely visable creases on his forhead. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, waiting patiently for the answer, glad that Tsnuade is to the point._

_"Sadly, yes. All of them have been recovered, save for two." She replied gravely. "Eight have been killed so far, but two dissapeared, and we do not know if they are dead or not. Shiro and Jiro Rinshan," She continued, passing him two photos. The first photo was of a man, mid twenties, brown hair, blue eyes, dark skin, and a big white toothed grin. He looked to have a strong build, and was/is? probably a considerable shinobi._

_"That is Jiro, the oldest of the twins. He is a jonin and dissapeared two days ago. Master of Gen jutsu, he is almost as good as kurenai." He nodded his head silently, making sure to retain the information. He looked at the next picture, and his jaw dropped considerably in shock. The man looked nothing like Jiro. He had pale blonde hair, pure black eyes, and his skin was shockingly white. His mouth was set in a firm, straight line, and his eyes dipicted anything but friendly. If anything, he'd say this guy made Gaara look like a stuffed animal. _

_Shikamaru heard Tsunade chuckle deeply. _

_"Shocked?"_

_"They look nothing alike! And this man makes Gaara look friendly!" Shikamaru said in complete shock, not daring to look down at the picture again for fear of being shocked into a coma._

_"That is Shiro. And your right, when it comes to his enemy's, they are usually dead before they can even touch him. He strikes fear into his enemy's eyes, paralizing them, and then swiftly takes their life. He is an ex-ANBU, retired so that he could complete 'simple' missions with his brother. Although he has the eyes of death and judgment, he would do anything to protect the people he cares for, including the village. It disturbes me that he's missing, he's not so easily beaten by enemy's..." 'Unless he's the one conspiring against the village...' Shikamaru thought to himself. _

Shikamaru let out a long sigh at the memory of the discussion he had with the Hokage. 'Hm, almost time to meet at the gate. 'What a drag.' he thought to himself as he past the Yamanaka flower shop. He could hear shuffling around inside the store as he decided to wait for Ino. As he was procrastinating, so he wouldn't have to see Naruto and tell him of the "Ghost" this early in the morning, Ino came rushing out of the flower shop, looking towards the ground instead of infront of her and ran straight into Shikamaru's back.

"Hey, watch where your going." He said turning around in surprise, with an almost bored expression on his face. Almost.

Ino was a mess. Her pony tail was lop-sided, she only had one shoe on, and was trying desperatly to keep her balance so she could slip the other one on.

"Why in such a rush?" He asked, trying despretly to contain his laughter. Did she think she was going to be late? She still had almost 45 minutes before they all have to meet at the gate!

"Were going to be late!" She said, dragging her backpack behind her.

"Calm down Ino, it's only 8:15." He stated.

"No, my clock said-" he pointed to the clock on the street corner.

"NA--RU--TO!" She roared at his prank, before charging back inside the flower shop. She came out minutes later looking normal again, but something was off. She was smiling. 'uh oh... this looks troublesome...." Shikamaru thought, warily glancing at her.

**(A/N: I promise to make the next chapter longer! I would have made this chapter longer, but sadly, I have homework that has yet to be completed :( I cannot wait to get the next chapter posted, and will try to do so by the end of the week. This is my first real FanFic, and constructive criticism is welcome! Please review, and if you have any ideas for the upcoming chapters (if you enjoyed the story, that is) i welcome them also.**

**Happy Random Day!**


	2. Chapter 2 Where are you?

_**Hey, I updated, yay! Sorry if this chapter is to short for you, but i just wanted to leave at like this so that the next chapter can be better. I just posted the first chapter yesterday, and I'm surprised really that I wrote this in an hour :) Please leave contrustive criticism and Review! Oh, and warn me if the characters are OOC**_

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto... "I love you Guy sensei!"**_

After arriving at the gates of Konoha, Ino had efficiently beat the living day lights out of Naruto. Shikamaru just watched, not taking action until Ino gave Naruto a look intent to kill. That's when he cut in. After Ino had sent Naruto flying through the air, crashing into a nearby building, he used his shadow possession in order to stop her from killing him.

Apparently, Naruto had disguised one of his shadow clones as Inoichi Yamanaka, snuck into her house, set the clock foward an hour, including the alarm. 'These two are more troublesome then i thought... What a drag.' He thought to himself. 'We're just lucky Sakura was walking by at the moment. Thanks to her brute strengh, she was able to stop Ino from punching a hole into his skull, and healed all of his injuries.

"Alright," Shikamaru started, an hour after leaving the gates of Konoha, and thanking Sakura. "The mission has changed a little bit." He continued, his lazy voice starting to shift into leader mode. "I'm going to get right to the point. The village expects that a ghost is tormenting the village. This Ghost is believed to be Hioshi Ryu, the villages first Leader over a century ago. Hioshi was killed at a young age while saving the village, and the villagers believe that he had come back, seeking revenge on the young shinobi by killing them." At this point in time, Naruto was staring blankly at Shikamaru, but he ignored him and kept talking, focus devoted to the task at hand.

"The guards at the gates of the village are being killed, one by one every night, and are left at there post for the villagers to see-"

"That's terrible..." Ino whispered.

"Yes, it is. Thats why we're going there. As far as we know, eight have been killed, and more recently, two have gone missing. The missing are, Jiro and Shiro, twins although they look nothing alike. Jiro three days ago, and Shiro, two. Our job is to investigate and help in any way we can." He looked to his left, and noted the frightend look Naruto's face currently occupied.

"Don't worry Naruto, I highly doubt that it's a real ghost we're dealing with. I know it's a drag, but we're going to have to find him an-"

"I'm not scared! Who said I'm scared?" He blurted out rather loudly.

"No one said you're scared." Ino said, her voice wavering as she tried to keep from yelling.

"Oh..." He muttered.

'What a drag,' Shikamaru thought to himself, hanging his head before continuing. "We're gonna try to get there by tonight, hopefully before any more guards are killed. It's about seven hours away, so let's get a move on." Shikamaru continued, slightly irritated because he just told Naruto that they were going to try to hurry. Naruto's version of hurry, or quickning the pace, is running like there's no tomorrow.

"Alright! Un-named village, here we come!" Naruto yelled, pumping his fist in the air as he darted down the path. 'Come to think of it, Tsunade didn't give us the name of the village...' He heard Ino sigh beside him.

"Where in the world does his energy come from?"

"Beats me. We should probably try to catch up. Troublesome..." He replied, shaking his head. After mutch running, yelling, and grumbling with frustration, they caught up with Naruto. He hadn't slowed one bit, infact he seemed faster.

"Naruto, slow down!" Shikamaru yelled despratly. Naruto came to an imediate stop, not even fased with the exertion of running so fast for three hours straight.

"Hm? Oh hey." Naruto said with a slight look of confusion that could have easily been overlooked, but not by Shikamaru.

"We have been chasing you for three hours, kucklehead! Why didn't you slow down?" Ino fumed.

"Oh, sorry, I must not have noticed." He replied, his hands in his pockets as he shrugged.

"Didn't notice?" Ino replied harshly, sending her hand flying into the back of his head. But it never made contact, because he dogged it swiftly. Shikamaru narrowed his eyes at him.

"I'm extremly sorry, it won't happen again!" He replied, the face of innocence.

"Let's just keep going. We want to make it to the village in time." Shikamaru interupted their dispute.

"Right!" They replied simultaniously.

They ran, carefully saving as much energy as possible, as the forest became thicker, and the vegitation started changing. Ino noticed the path becoming less noticable, but didn't comment. Soon enough though, the path dissapeared.

"What the? Isn't the path supossed to keep going? It just vanished!" Ino asked, confused.

"Yeah, and we should be there by now. We didn't make a wrong turn, did we?" Shikamaru asked, looking to the map once more.

"No we didn't. Look behind us, the forest. It's not the same!" Ino cried.

"Great, what's going on?" He asked rhetorically, checking his surroundings. "Hey... Where is Naruto?!" He was nowhere to be seen. The obnoxious blonde had dissapeared.

"Maybe we should-- Ino?!" The other blonde had dissapeared also. "INO! Where are you? Hey, can you hear me?"

"Shikamaru, I'm over here!" He heard her yell, her voice slightly panicked. He ran towards the sound of her voice, but still couldn't find her. "Ino!"

"I'm right h-mmm!" Her voice was muffled, he ran faster. He could sense her chakra, and despratly clung to his last hope of not losing his comrade, and occasionaly, good friend. He felt as if he were running in giant circles, everything looked the same. He could sense her chakra moving, but it was close.

He climbed to the very top of a tall tree as fast as he could, gathering his chakra at the bottem of his feet so he could balance. He gasped, barely able to contain his dispare as he looked out over the forrest. It wen't on forever, and everything looked the same.

"Ino!" He tried once again, listning carfully, focusing on the forest intently for the slightest movement. 'There!' He thought to himself, as he rushed off to where he saw the slight movement of a tree. Her chakra was getting closer, and he could hear muffled noises. He broke through the thick, canopy of leaves, and landed on a large branch.

His jaw dropped at the sight infront of him. A big, giant creature with multiple tails, arms, and vines purtruding from it's body, was right infront of him. It stood twenty feet tall, a sickly greenish blue, and what appeard to be goo was covering every inch of it's body. It looked like a cross between a toad and some sort of plant. It's mouth opened wide, revealing razer like teeth. It's tongue shot out at him, but he dogged it, barely.

The creature appeared to frown with dissapointment and tried again, only to be dogged a second time. It growled deeply, it's fowl smelling breath infecting the air with it's scent. Grasped in it's multiple, vine like arms, where giant logs that her swung around widely. Shikamaru observed the creature, carfull not to get to distracted, when suddenly he saw a flash of blonde hair. His eyes widened as he yelled, "Ino!" She was still consious, but had cuts and bruises of different sizes covering her body. Pulling out a kunai with a paper bomb attached to it, he threw it at the monsters fish like eye ball, dashing behind a tree. He heard a satisfying boom and felt the impact. Peeking from behind the tree, he caught a glimpse of the monster. 'What the hell? It didn't even take any effect! But thats impossible!' He thought to himself, truely confused. 'Wait, unless...'

"Release!" He said aloud, making the hand signals to release the gen jutsu. He peeked from behind the tree once more, only to see Ino falling from the sky, the monster gone. He ran out to catch Ino before she made contact with the ground. He grunted from the slight impact, losing his balance and falling to the ground with a thud. He layed her on the ground, concern filling his eyes.

"Ino! Hey, wake up!" He said, skaking her gently. She stirred, turning over onto her side, and coughed out a small amount of blood. He helped her up, carfull not to touch any of the wounds on her back.

"What happened?" She asked, holding onto her side, locating a deep gash as she winced in pain.

"Gen jutsu. You need help." He replied shortly. "You don't have enough chakra to heal yourself complety, so heal the worst ones, and we'll bandage the others." He sighed.

"I know." She snapped, looking up at him through her bangs, a pained expression on her face.

"So what happened?"

"I was standing next to you one minute, and then suddenly I was swollowed by the tree, which can't be possible. The next thing I know, I'm fighting a disgusting monster, and got knocked over the head. I woke up here." She informed him.

"How bad are your injuries?" He asked, croutching down next to her.

"I think I broke three ribs, but I'll be fine. I have just enough chakra left to repair them." She stated, moving her chakra filled hands over her rib cage. She winced in pain every so often, feeling the ribs move back into place.

"Your lucky none of them punctured your lungs."

"I know." She muttered quietly, her focus on healing herself. Slowly, she started rising, only to be stopped by a large hand on her shoulder gently pushing her back down.

"Rest. Naruto should be fine. You need to recover some of your chakra before we start out again." He stated bluntly as he leaned back, his arms tucked behind his head, one leg crossing the other, and layed down on the grass. She rolled her eyes at him, but didn't argue because she new he was right.

"I see, you figured it out." A strangers voice echoed, startling them. They both quickly turned around and saw...

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_**A/N: Enjoy? I'm sorry, I just had to end with a cliff hanger! Please review, give me advice, constructive criticism, and I'll try to update as soon as possible. Oh and please review! I love getting reviews, plus i usually go on a writing rampage when I do get reviews! **_

_**Thanks!**_

**_ Hey, I just read over this chapter, and I apologize. The sentence fluency is terrible, and the organization is sloppy. I also didn't add enough detail. I'll make sure to watch for these mistakes in the next chapter before posting, which I'm working on right now! I'll probably update by Monday, if not sooner, and maybe even revise this whole chapter, we'll see I guess. Special thanks to Reviewers, and the people who have read this!_**

**_Haha, don't ever write at three in the morning and post right away!_**


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